Shaun Lewis: the Man, the Myth, the Legend

Well, it’s Saturday.

I noticed it snowed last night. Had I not noticed last night, I don’t think I would’ve known today because it sure melted fast. That’s good though because it was exceptionally cold last night; I was worried it would still be the same temperature this morning. Luckily, it wasn’t. I am quite distressed at how cold it still is. I figured the weather would be acceptable by now. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

As cold as it was last night, that did not keep Jacki and I from spending most of our time outside. Apparently, the plans I came up with last night reflected that I thought it would be warmer than it was. In other words, I was foolish. That happens quite a lot, actually. Still, I had fun.

Initially, I had no idea what to do when I called Jacki; it was about 5:00 or so. She had no idea either and it looked as though we were going to resign ourselves to another mediocre night. Not that any night with Jacki is ever mediocre—there’s always usually something that catches on fire or something. “Mediocre” translates to “sitting around watching American Idol or just going to the bookstore/mall/Dunkin’ Donuts.” I didn’t want it to be like that though; Jacki would be leaving for Thailand the next day (today) for about a week or so, and I wanted to give her a decent send-off.

It didn’t look like that was going to happen.

Luckily, Jacki couldn’t leave to go do stuff right away. She had a few errands to run beforehand. I was charged with the task of finding “something awesome to do.” I hurriedly scoured the Internet for events that were happening in the Dayton area. To my surprise, there was quite literally nothing. It seemed as though everyone was preparing for St. Patrick’s Day (and the weekend that followed) to start their events.

Blast.

“OK,” I thought, “maybe there is something going on in Cincinnati.” Cincinnati is Dayton’s friendly neighbor to the south. Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, I was pretty freakin’ desperate. In fact, I was so desperate, I called the great and powerful Maria Waltner to see if she knew if there was anything going on that Jacki and I could do.

There was a tingling sensation in my brain as I dialed her number. I was unfamiliar with this feeling and it wasn’t until I had finished dialing and Maria’s phone was ringing that the tingling sensation matured into a full-fledged idea and I realized what it was. I had to make small chit-chat with Maria and I hastened the end of the call to further investigate my idea. (Yeah, by the way, sorry if I sounded to-the-point last night Maria—I had a mission).

Jacki called and she was ready to leave: victory was almost mine!

I went over to Jacki’s house and we hung out in her room for a couple of minutes. She had two records she wanted me to listen to; they were from her grandparent’s private collection. For those of you who have never heard a 78 rpm record, I highly recommend you try it before you die. The records she had were bloody awesome because they were old and scratchy. Personally, I love records like that. One of the songs, “When Irish Eyes Were Smiling,” was scratched all to hell. I really liked it though.

After listening to the records, we left. Our destination was unknown to Jacki. I had decided to turn it into a surprise. I like surprises.

On the way, we stopped @ Wendy’s because I wanted to get some dinner. Jacki had already eaten, so it was just me who got some food. I ordered chicken nuggets and they were superb. By this time in the journey, however, snow had begun to fall pretty heavily. Part of the plan involved a drive down to Cincinnati and I wasn’t sure if my plans were worth the weather we would have to endure. I finally decided to tell Jacki the plan and ask her if she still wanted to go even though it was snowing mad crazy. We both decided not to go.

Since we were near the Dayton Mall area, I drove around for a little bit so we could decide what to do instead. In my 5 minutes of driving, the weather cleared up and once again, we were on our way south. The ride to Cincinnati was quite horrible because the roads were bad and people are stupid. Still, we made it to Cincinnati and the beginning of our evening: Newport.

Newport wasn’t exactly our “destination,” but it was a place where we could park and stuff. I did just that.

Once we were out of the parking garage we realized it was EXTREMELY cold. The warm air in the parking garage had created a false sense of hope within our hearts. Still, we were troopers and continued despite the frigid air. We walked across the Purple People Bridge (yes, that is actually the name of the name of the bridge—not a cute name I made up) and arrived where we were supposed to go: a park. I actually don’t know the name of the park, but it’s the one with the big statue of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. I knew about the park because Angie and I had gone down there once.

So, there Jacki and I were an hour away from from home walking around a park at nighttime with an average temperature of negative 2. It was extremely fun. We wandered around for an hour or so; at one point, we decided to do what we always do and trespass so that I could stick the sole of my shoe in the river and say I had been in the Ohio River during winter. That was a mistake because I think my shoe still smells like the river.

After our faces were numb and ears purple from the cold (not an exaggeration) we headed back across the bridge and sat down in the Newport Mall for a minute or two to warm up. After that, we walked back to the car, were surprised at how quickly we found it, and then headed back home to Dayton. We both almost fell asleep on the way (yeah—I was driving), but managed to make it back alive. Upon our arrival, we sat down to watch The Duellists, a personal favorite of mine. Even though we watched it last night, Jacki still hasn’t seen it; we were both fast asleep within 10 minutes of the movie.

All-in-all, I think the night was pretty fun. Originally, it seemed like it was going to suck, but it didn’t. I’m quite happy about that.

As for my plans tonight: I have none. Probably, I will make a movie. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, but I really just haven’t had the chance.